Creative Destruction – a path into the heart of an artist’s choice.

        Creative destruction – a path into the heart of an artist’s choice. Unlike Joseph Schumpeter’s definition of revolutionizing an economic structure by destroying the old to make way for the new, my definition is more one of laying to rest naggy, creative forces of other ideas so that the artist can give birth to the one currently pushing through her artistic loins. 

        Once an artist makes the decision to put her passion toward a specific project: a painter chooses a subject to paint and puts brush to canvas; a writer commits to “Once upon a time…” when she finds a character steeped in longing to obtain a goal; a composer hears the strains of a theme playing in her head and scratches the initial note in the first measure – that decision leads to the destruction of all other ideas. For that moment, which may extend into maybe months or even years, other ideas are laid to rest, destroyed if you will, until brought to life again when raised from a once forgotten grave.

        So when I chose my twisted little story about a woman, (I’ll call her “Searcher,” though her name only appears in the script,) who becomes emotionally and sexually enthralled with a couch, I lovingly destroyed other ideas banging around in my head in order to see that this one would live.

        The theme of this idea is obsession consumes.

        To bring this baby to life took a crew of over twenty people, each very talented in their part of the puzzle. Each member of the cast and crew committed their own creative destruction in order to free themselves (emotionally and physically) to work on the film.

        I am writing this as we slog through the post production phase, but looking back at the first day of shooting, I remember the crewing roaring up to the set to begin the adventure of finding our ways into the hearts of the characters and ultimately into the heart of the audience. Creative destruction at work!

A kernel of an idea…

It was probably over five years ago I stumbled out of my home office, frazzled and a bit disoriented from writing all day. I headed for the kitchen looking for some muchies to get me through the late afternoon droop.

I passed our white wool couch. Stopped in my tracks. The couch was sprouting a beard. The whole back sported a five o’clock shadow.

Oh, dear Jesus, what is it? The thing is alive. The thing is a he! The thing is macho and handsome and…STOP!

“Tamp it down,” I said to myself. “You’re disappearing into a fictional world. Be careful. You may never come back.” I looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Yes,” I said to myself. “You’re right.”

Big breath. Another big breath. Ah, yes. The explanation: My big black lab, Sally, had rubbed up against the back of the couch and her black hair had caught in the fibers. I laughed. “You’re a loon!” I told myself and continued on to the kitchen.

By the time I’d returned to my office it had taken form. A story about a woman who fell in love with her couch. So damaged by men, she sublimated her deepest desires for love and attention to furniture because furniture would never leave her, betray her or make her feel like poopie pie. But where did she get these deeply rooted fears? From her mother, of course. The woman in the bathtub drinking Mouton-Rothchild and whittling away on her wrists, touching them up as if she were touching up her lipstick.

And there is was. A story.

It nagged. “Write me, write me!”

“No,” I said. “You’re too bent. Nobody would understand.”

But it became a short story that never got submitted. And then one day, (I remember it was raining) I opened up the file and by the end of the afternoon the short story had morphed into short film script.

“Make me, make me!” Again it started nagging. It nagged for years. It nagged especially loudly during the making of the first short, EASY MADE HARD. It was an envious little piece, very bratty, sometimes nasty and filled with vitriol.

This summer I buckled. A WARNING FROM THE BATHTUB will get its way!

In the beginning…

This is a story about making a short film entitled WARNINGS FROM THE BATHTUB. I encouage you to subscribe and follow the adventure that will lead you from the bathtub to the inner soul of a couch. How many bloggers can promise that?